In Ukraine, more and more entrepreneurs are returning to business after ceasing operations. In the first nine months of 2026, the number of repeated registrations of sole proprietors has already exceeded last year's total.
This is evidenced by data from Opendatabot, published on November 2 based on information from the Unified State Register.
From January to September 2026, 30,033 repeated sole proprietorship registrations were recorded in Ukraine. In total, 29,382 people who previously had this status but later terminated it returned to entrepreneurship.
According to analysts, the share of repeated registrations among all newly opened sole proprietorships this year reached 14%. Thus, approximately one in seven entrepreneurs who registered in 2026 had previously owned a business.
By comparison, in 2023 the share of repeated openings was about 5%, in 2024 — 7%, and in 2025 — 10%. Thus, over the past three years this indicator has significantly increased.
Why entrepreneurs re-register as sole proprietors
The head of the parliamentary Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, named several reasons for this trend.
One factor was the simplification of state procedures. Since June 2023, sole proprietors can terminate their activities automatically via the “Diia” portal, without the participation of a state registrar. Since November of the same year, the “e-Entrepreneur” service allows simultaneous business registration and choice of tax system.
According to Hetmantsev, it is the availability of these services that has made closing and reopening entrepreneurial activity much easier.
Another reason is the financial burden on entrepreneurs who temporarily have no income.
The deputy noted that from January 1, 2025, maintaining a sole proprietorship without income may cost more than UAH 30,000 per year due to the need to pay the unified social contribution and military levy. Specific liabilities depend on the taxation group and the availability of legislative benefits.
Because of this, some entrepreneurs consider it appropriate to terminate registration during downtime and restore it when orders or business opportunities reappear.
Hetmantsev also mentioned tax optimization and relocation of businesses between communities as another factor. According to him, re-registration sometimes allows faster access to a lower flat tax rate in another community than a standard change of tax address.
At the same time, the committee head emphasized that the closure and reopening of a sole proprietorship by itself does not indicate a violation of the law.
He acknowledged that individual cases may be related to business splitting or misclassification of labor relations, but considers the share of such situations insignificant.
Where sole proprietorships are most often reopened
The largest number of repeated registrations in the first nine months of 2026 was recorded in Kyiv — 3,862 cases, or about 13% of the national total.
The top five regions also include:
- Dnipropetrovsk region — 2,861 repeated registrations;
- Odesa region — 2,226;
- Lviv region — 2,115;
- Kyiv region — 2,032.
The study also showed that some Ukrainians repeatedly terminate and resume entrepreneurial activity.
The record belongs to a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Dnipropetrovsk region, who has eight repeated sole proprietorship registrations. They occurred in 2021, 2022, and 2024. His activities are related to real estate and advertising.
Four more entrepreneurs from Kharkiv, Volyn, Rivne, and Khmelnytskyi regions have seven repeated openings each. They work in various fields — from trade and programming to computer repair and medical services.
Opendatabot explained that a repeated registration is considered every new opening of a sole proprietorship by a person who had previously been registered as an entrepreneur. The first opening is not counted, and one person can have multiple repeated registrations.
That is why the number of such registrations in statistics exceeds the number of entrepreneurs who returned to work.
Based on materials from: Opendatabot
